It was a sticky summer day
at school, and I was trying to forget the heat by reorganizing my anime picture
collection. Suddenly one of the guys slid into the seat next to me and picked
up one my beloved pictures of Zel - with his bare, sweaty hands, not even bothering
to hold it by the edges. I almost fainted.

"Would you mind giving
that back?" I (very nicely) asked.

He tossed it on my desk,
and I carefully slid it into my album, making a mental note to disinfect it
when I got home. "I don't know why you're so hung up on such an unrealistic
anime anyway."

I glared at him. (if looks
could kill mine would've been a Giga Slave) "Is there such a thing as a
realistic anime?" I politely inquired.

"Sure," he shrugged.
"Evangeliion is realistic."

"Pardon?" I raised
an eyebrow. (please don't get me wrong - I love Eva almost as much as I love
Slayers) "Excuse me, but I haven't heard anything about Angels attacking
any cities in Japan lately ... have I been missing something?"

He ignored my icy tone. "Eva
is at least something that could become true later on in the future. And
it deals with human problems. Slayers is too comical, and definitely unreal."

"How do you know?"
I demanded. "A world like Slayers could exist, maybe light years in the
future. Or maybe there could have been something like Slayers in the past."
(ok, maybe I was stretching it a bit. But you never know!)

I thought he was having a
seizure, the way he laughed. "Give me a break."

So ends my little story,
which is of course a true one. But the more I think about, the more it doesn't
make sense. Why do people think Evangelion is "better" than Slayers,
in terms of reality and subject matter?

::takes out soapbox and stands
on it::

OK, I admit Slayers is more
comical than anything else. Sometimes it can be downright outrageous. A paraody,
if you will. But isn't that life? Isn't life just one big paraody? Even the
most tragic situations have their humorous side. Life is not
always as depressing as Evangelion makes it out to be. And Slayers isn't all comedy either. In the last eps of Next, Lina had to
decide whether she was going to put the existence of the world, or her own desires
first. And she chose herself. Isn't that something we face in life almost everyday?
Of course, it's never on such a grand scale ... but nevertheless we are always
having to choose between the good of the group we are in and our own personal
welfare. And most of us, myself among them, don't have the courage to choose
as Lina did. So even in such a comedy as Slayers, there are things we can learn
and relate to.

::soapbox voices its agreement::

Enough preaching already,
and on to the next bone I have to pick. Reality?
Goddess ... ok, maybe there is a tiny more of a chance
that something like Evangelion will happen than the chance that something like
Slayers will happen. But If you look at it that way, the possibilities are endless!
For all we know, Sailormoon could become reality in the next century. Or Totoro.
Or X. My point is, whether or not an anime is something that could or could've
happened is no way to judge it. Anime is not
reality anyway (though Goddess knows I wish it were).

Anyway, what I want to say
is this - Slayers may be somewhat of an outrageous comedy that is as far away
from being serious as I am from being a Conservative, but it is, in its way,
no worse (or better) than any other anime, at least in the two ways I mentioned
above. So if you happen to be someone like the as.. um, I mean, like the person
I mentioned above, please think it over. And if you still think Eva is "better"
than Slayers because it is more "real" ... would you mind giving me
your email address?